


Of Frogs and Fighters

by merlinus_ambrosius



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Baby Fluff, Baby Yoda in Peril, Din doesn't know yet what he's longing for, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Mandalorians (Star Wars), Obligatory Giant Spiders, Season 2, Snow and Ice, Space Pirates, Water, clueless pining, protecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27524206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlinus_ambrosius/pseuds/merlinus_ambrosius
Summary: Din finds that his passenger reminds him of someone...
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin, Cara Dune/The Mandalorian, Din Djarin & Frog Lady (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin/Cara Dune, The Mandalorian & Baby Yoda
Comments: 37
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on chapter 10 of season 2...

Din crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and willed sleep to come. Usually he didn’t have any problem wrapping himself in sleep—he wouldn’t have survived long as a warrior without the ability to sleep as needed. 

The Frog Lady squawked at him, wrapped her blanket around the egg canister, but what did she expect him to do? He couldn’t keep her eggs warm himself, and the _Crest_ couldn’t produce any heat until he could make repairs. And he certainly wasn’t going to try to fix anything until daylight and some semblance of warmth returned to this forsaken ice hole. 

He felt the Child snuggle up against him, burrowing into the blanket and around the flap of Din’s hip armor. He felt himself smile slightly. He’d grown so accustomed to the kid being around that he wasn’t sure he could go back to the way things used to be… 

Din pushed the thought away. He’d been quested to return the Child to his people. They were a clan of two, yes. But that was only until he fulfilled his mission. 

Well, he wouldn’t think about that now, only let sleep take him. He hadn’t known bone-deep weariness like this in a long, long time. After the long trek through the desert, then the fight with the Krayt Dragon, then being waylaid and attacked, and another long trek carrying so many burdens, and now this Frog Lady, whose frantic gestures toward the eggs tugged at something in his memory…

“Wake up, Mandalorian!” said a voice from his nightmares. His blaster was in his hand before he had a conscious thought. 

It took him a full two seconds to realize that Frog Lady had accessed Zero the droid’s vocabulator, and it was not in fact Zero returned to life, ready to blast the kid into oblivion. 

“This cannot wait until morning. Do not be alarmed….”

“What the hell are you doing?” He holstered the gun and felt his heartbeat begin to decelerate. “That droid is a killer!” 

“These are the last brood of my life cycle. My husband has risked his life to carve out an existence for us on the only planet that is hospitable to our species. We fought too hard and suffered too much to resign ourselves to the extinction of our family line. I must demand that you hold true to the deal that you agreed to.” 

Again the tugging at his memory, the tenacity and protectiveness… 

_“Well, I’m coming with you…. I don’t care. I’m coming.”_

Din shook his head quickly to clear it. 

“Look, lady, the deal is off. We’re lucky if we get off this frozen tomb with our lives.” 

“I thought honoring one’s word was a part of the Mandalorian code. I guess those are just stories for children.” 

He heard the Child squeak, look up to him with his big eyes. 

He sighed. 

So here he was, outside in this kriffing frozen wasteland, muttering to himself, soldering the _Crest_ in the kriffing _dark,_ but at least he didn’t have the kid underfoot, trying to keep him under his eye while simultaneously keeping him out of the sparks and danger. 

“Wek. Eh, baba. Wek. Ba.” The Child came around the corner, pointing and clearly agitated. 

Like Din was. 

_Dank ferric._ If the Frog Lady wasn’t going to help repair the _Crest,_ the least she could do was keep an eye on the ever-curious kid. If she was taking a nap while he was freezing his ass off out here…

He snapped something and immediately regretted it as the kid wilted and moved off, crestfallen. He followed, trying to find words to apologize to a baby, and found him standing in the snow, looking down at a set of footprints. 

As if this day could get any worse. 

He knelt beside the Child, then brought up the infrared heat detector in his visor, and there were the footprints going off into the snow. 

_Red footprints going off, going away…but not far, that time on Sorgan._

Din picked up the Child. They would need to follow. 

  


  


  


The spiders were coming faster now. A few smaller ones had already gotten into the cockpit, but he hardly spared them a thought. He could pick them off later, but now he had to hold off the horde, get the door shut, before—

 _Blaster fire?_ Four shots…

Din turned his head in time to see Frog Lady, a tiny four-chamber blaster in her shaking hand. It seemed her aim was true, as dead spiders collapsed from around the Child. 

_She stood over the body of the bounty hunter, her blaster smoking. While he’d been distracted, she had been the one keeping watch over the kid._

_“They’ll keep coming,” she’d said._

Din turned back to the cockpit door and primed his flamethrower. When the door finally closed before the charred remains of the spiders, he turned and looked at the other protector. He was beginning to understand now why she was triggering all these memories he thought he’d tucked away out of sight so carefully. 

  


  


  


At last he’d finished pressurizing the hull, hours of work he really could have used a couple of extra hands with. He was ready to drop into his chair and not wake for _hours._ The fatigue was curling around his consciousness like tendrils, like actual spider webs… “Okay, repairs all done. Let’s see if we can get this thing going once and for all.” 

The faithful engines of the _Crest_ fired up, running so roughly the ears of the Child perched on his lap jiggled with the vibrations. 

Behind him, Frog Lady clutched the container of eggs to her protectively, shielding them with her body. 

_“She’s coming with me,” he’d told Greef Karga. He’d meant she was coming into Nevarro to protect him, of course, nothing more. Yet somehow he’d been so aware of her every move inside the cantina, even when his brain told him that it was impossible: senses didn’t work that way._

_But his did, for her._

__

_Then Moff Gideon had raised his blaster, and the next thing Din knew, she was holding him in her arms, lowering him onto the fallen slab of a cantina table._

__

_“Stay with me,” she’d said._

__

_“I’m not gonna make it. Go,” he’d said, though the latter was more of a hope than a command. It was not even a surprise when she ignored him._

__

_“I won’t leave you,” she’d said, and he knew that most arguments would be futile. She threw herself over him, her own body protecting him from the flames. She took his hand, held it, and comfort flowed out of her to him like the blood flowed out of his wounds. The one thing he needed her to do—care for the Foundling—he’d gasped out, and then he knew she would listen. It wasn’t just about the two of them, they both knew that. It was so much bigger._

__

_And then she had traded holding him for holding the Child, and he’d known he could die now with that part of him at peace. The Child would be safe and protected._

The _Crest_ bludgeoned her way out of the cave and they limped out of the planet’s atmosphere. 

“Wake me up if someone shoots at us,” Din told Frog Lady when they reached clear space. “Or that door gets sucked off its rails. 

“I’m kidding. If that happened, we’d all be dead. Sweet dreams.” 

The humor was exhausted and dark, as dark as those days after he’d buried Kuiil, when he’d wondered why he was so out of sorts, short-tempered, and impatient even with the Child. 

_“You’re staying here?”_

__

_He couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice._

__

_She’d said she’d be his eyes. She’d said “I’ve got you” as she let him lean on her. She’d said she wouldn’t leave him._

__

_He’d thought they were partners, or at least…at least loyal friends. He’d thought… Well, he guessed he’d thought that somehow she would be there as always, with a sharp word or two maybe, but there to help, with a blaster or with a pair of arms to keep the baby safe._

__

_How had he misunderstood_ so completely? 

_He’d saved his dignity afterwards at least, acted like of course she’d want to protect the town and not accompany Din on this tortuous path, but it had been with a surge of relief and a strange pang of…something…that he’d felt the Child tug his trouser leg and wordlessly ask to be held, a reminder that Din still had a job to do, a distraction that really should be, after all, the_ main _thing. His duty. His quest. It had always been enough, before, to do the job in front of him._

_“Take care of this little one,” she said. It was the same directive, really, from her as from the Armorer, just as sacred. And he was trying._

He pulled the Child closer now in the frigid cockpit, held him tighter against him with two arms as he’d been doing of late.

He had to keep the kid warm, of course. And when the baby nestled back against him, it didn’t seem quite so cold. 

  


  


  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! There’s another chapter! (Based on season 2, chapter 11)

Din woke again to the sound of the alert that they were approaching the moon Trask. How long had he slept? Not long. Not ever long enough. 

He’d been dreaming. He couldn’t remember what it was about, but it had left him tense, anxious. He was pretty sure it had been the dream he often had in which he was trying to get somewhere, desperately fighting, but losing, even while he could see the goal ahead in the distance, vague and shimmery like a city in the fog. 

He heard the Child coo behind him and shook off the tendrils of the dream. “Looks like we made it. Get ready for landing.” 

And of course the poor damaged _Crest_ could not even manage to budge her landing array. He braced for a rough landing sequence. 

They hit atmosphere and when the flames roared up around them, an alarm sounded. Excessive temps on the thrust-pressure manifold. Then, even worse, the one for overheating in the powercore system. 

“Come up here. _I need your hands!_ ” he yelled, but he felt a shock go through him when it was not her black gloves and vambraces that came into view but two pinkish humanoid hands with spatulate digits. Why had he thought--?

There was no time to wonder. “This lever needs to stay back. Can you do that?” The Frog Lady squawked an affirmation. 

They barreled down toward the surface and for the first time he began to doubt there’d be enough fuel to perform the reverse-thruster function. Was the gauge even functioning? 

The voice from the moon’s flight control came through with a request to reduce his speed. “I’m trying my best here,” he snapped. Something flew past the cockpit windows—no doubt another panel had jarred loose. And least he hoped that was all it was. 

“Brace,” he told his passengers. Again the _Crest_ responded with all her heart and gave him everything in her, however faint. He wasn’t sure it was enough. “Hold on!” 

“Razor Crest, _you have to reduce speed. Do you copy? Do you copy?_ ” 

Din spared a moment to switch off the annoying voice before he hovered over the landing pad. “Here we go. Nice and easy…”

The port engine caught fire, exploded, and toppled them into the harbor. 

At least the cockpit held where he’d repaired it, and though being submerged in water made him break out into a cold sweat, the _Crest_ was soon fished out and dumped onto the dry pad where it belonged. 

A dock mechanic promised to make the _Crest_ fly again—which he had to wonder about, but what choice did he have?—and he handed over one thousand of his precious hoard of credits for the repair. 

Frog Lady had moved off into the crowd on the docks, calling for her husband, he supposed. She stood looking around, alone in the crowd. What would happen if she couldn’t find him? Din had not let himself think about her plight too much—it would hit too close to home these days and he was already out of sorts, adrift…

He heard her gasp and squeal, and she took off running as fast as she could, carrying the burden of her progeny with her. She held out her hands as she ran into her husband’s arms. They embraced sweetly, and Frog Man gently lowered the canister of eggs to admire. They caressed each other’s faces, speaking words of affection no doubt, and then the container of eggs. 

The Child looked up at Din and whined. Did he feel the pull as much as Din did? 

Of course not. That didn’t make sense. 

He had to swallow before he could say, “I know you’re hungry. We’ll get you something to eat.” 

The Frog Man came and croaked at him, taking his hand and patting it gratefully. 

“You’re welcome,” Din said, past the lump in his throat. “I was told you could lead me to others of my kind.” 

The Frog Man pointed to the inn and indicated Din should follow. Din was aware that someone had been watching, and now he turned his head to see a cloaked woman disappear into the shadows. 

It was a good reminder that sentiment could not have this kind of place in his life. He must be on guard at every moment: he was both hunter and prey. 

But as he followed the Frogs through the crowd, he could not help but notice how they clung to each other, and Frog Lady looked back to check the on the Child, trailing along behind him. 

  


  


  


Din stood on the deck of the boat looking out at the waves, the Child beside him, still pondering his strange reaction to the Frogs. 

Why had it seemed so _right_ that they were together again? That these two people were so drawn together, to raise their children together…

Almost everyone he knew in the covert had been raised by one parent. It worked. When the parent couldn’t be there, there was the tribe to help them along. Sometimes there were two, but that was a luxury, really, in the dire times Mandalorians lived in. 

He didn’t need anyone, surely, to help him raise this foundling. Occasional help, yes. He didn’t have the rest of the covert around the corner. Just because a couple of Frog people were _so happy…_

But then, if he found one of these Jedi, he would have to return the Child to—

He was not going to think about that. Any of it. 

A Quarren approached him, making small talk about feeding whatever creature was under the grate. 

“Child might take an interest,” he commented. 

Din looked at his foundling, who cooed. He guessed if he was going to raise this Child right, he should let him get a little more experience of the world. 

The Quarren blathered on about this mamacore, a creature Din had never heard of—

And the Quarren had knocked the Child into the watery hold. For one frozen second, Din saw that the Child had the presence of mind to close his pod before the jaws of the creature closed around it, and Din dove in after him. 

The creature was too deep and Din had to come up for air, but the grate had closed over the top. Din gasped for breath, but the Quarren had gathered to chop and stab at him as he struggled against the weight of his armor to get to the top of the enclosure. 

“Drown him!” they laughed, calling to each other about his beskar. “Finish him!” 

Din could not hold on, could not breathe, was going down under the weight… The Child, the Child would die if he could not…

There was some kind of confusion on the deck, and it gave Din time to propel himself to the surface with his jetpack but still he could barely breathe, and the Child, he had to rescue the Child…

The grate opened, and he saw a helmet and a hand reaching down to him. 

Was this an omen that again his life would change forever? 

“There’s a creature, it has the Child,” he managed to gasp to the other Mandalorians as he was hauled onto the deck. His rescuer helped him to sit. “The Child. Help the Child.” He was alive but it would mean nothing if the kid was dead, if he was gone…

“Don’t worry, brother. We’ve got this,” said the one who’d pulled him out. 

_Brother_? The word sent a surge of warmth skittering across the top of his frozen mind, but it could not sink in, not when the Child—

A couple of blasterfire bursts and a roar, and the third Mandalorian burst out of the water with the pod. It was mangled and crushed, and Din’s heart stopped. She ripped off the side of the pod, and the Child lay there, unmoving. But then there was a squeak as she picked up the Child, unharmed, and he heard a strange whimpering sound that seemed to be coming from his own throat. 

The hands that had been steady since he swore the Creed now shook as he reached out for the Child, and suddenly he was breathing again, looking down into the huge dark eyes that looked puzzled but reassured to be in his arms again. Din held him against his side, pulled down his little collar to see his face better, put a hand on his heart to make sure it really was beating away, a little faster than normal perhaps, but steady and regular. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. He swallowed quickly, tried to pull himself together. “I’ve been searching for more of our kind.” 

“Well, lucky we found you first,” said the woman who seemed to be the leader. 

“I’ve been quested to deliver this child.” The kid’s breathing too was regular as his little chest rose and fell. “I was hoping that—”

He looked up as he heard the hiss of helmets being removed. 

He put his hand on his blaster and tried to stand, though his knees failed him. How could he fight these people who had saved both him and the Child, especially when he could barely stand? 

The child squeaked his question too. 

He managed to stand. “Where did you get that armor?” 

“This armor had been in my family for three generations.” 

“You do not cover your face. You are not Mandalorian.” 

“He’s one of _them,_ ” said the man. 

  


  


  


Din watched from the docks as the three Mandalorians in the distance jetpacked off the boat before it blew. The sunset bathed the scene in beautiful shades of warm orange, but Din felt the chill in his heart as he turned away. 

It seemed too cruel to have found more of his kind, only to have them disparage the ancient Way, but worse, to call him a zealot in that scornful tone. _“He’s one of_ them.” He was a true follower, a man of honor, and he did not break his word. He didn’t know what these people believed, how they dared to show their faces—had they no Creed?—but no matter what they wore, if they were not honorable he could not be a part of them. He had grown too much for that. 

He held the Child to him and still he could not deny the pull he felt toward these people who had also called him _brother._

To be part of a family…

Back to those kriffing Frogs again, wasn’t he?

What was _wrong_ with him these days? 

  


  


  


Here he was, pulled into helping someone else once more. Another mission that could get him killed and leave the Child a foundling again. But he’d been quested to deliver the Child, and his duty must be done, however he could, whatever it took. This time, though, he wasn’t risking the Child. 

He knocked on the door, and no sooner had it opened than it hit him again. The warmth, the flickering light, the gentle affection, the hope, the simple joy of family together. The Frogs looked up with welcome on their faces. 

He rushed into words before it could seep inside of him. “Something’s come up. Can I leave him with you for a bit?” 

He and the Child had discussed what was and was not acceptable on the way over. He trusted the Child would obey under the eyes of _two_ of them. “You’re staying here for a bit. You be respectful and mind your manners.” He infused more sternness into his voice. “You know what I’m talking about.” 

Frog Lady took the Child so gently and held him with tenderness, boosting him up to the table to look at the eggs, held him almost as if she were—

“I’ll be back for him,” Din said on his way out, but already the circle of affection had closed back around them and he was on the outside. 

  


  


  


Din walked the quiet street back toward the Frog house, trying to shake the feeling that she’d been right behind him, enjoying the kriff out of taking that freighter and picking off Imps. Until Bo-Katan had changed the terms of the deal mid-job. _“This is more than I signed up for,”_ he’d said, as if the memory of her at his side on Sorgan had been so close that her words came out of his mouth. 

His steps slowed. The feeling of satisfaction from succeeding at his task and finally getting information on a Jedi was fading. He was back to the jangled feeling of confusion. 

Bo-Katan and her companions certainly fought like Mandalorians—of that there could be no doubt. Nor did he doubt now that she had been born on Mandalore and inherited her armor. But…

Was what she had said about the Children of the Watch true? Did the Armorer know of these other Mandalorians? 

Bo-Katan had not exactly honored her word, though she had ultimately held true to her promise. Could she be wholly trusted? 

He had no choice but to follow her direction to the Jedi. 

But did he have a choice to believe what she said about his covert? 

He would sort it out, somehow. Sometime. For now, he had to brace himself to go back into that home again, fight off the warmth and light and love and belonging, get the kid, and get back out. 

“Thank you for watching him,” he said, barely stopping for breath. “Come on, kid. It’s time to go.” He picked up the Child, tearing him away from the Frog Family circle. The Child fought, scrambling with arms and legs and voice to stay and play with the little tadpole. 

“Let go. Come on, kid.” 

_Believe me, I understand._

The Child kept whining and Din backed out, throwing congratulations at the Frogs in his wake to cover his escape. 

  


  


  


The _Crest_ was a mess. Even through his helmet he could tell that it smelled exactly like the dock at Trask. But worse. And who knew what else was going to crawl out of the shadows of this ship after it had had its baptism. 

Aside from the ship being one rough landing from falling apart, even the cockpit felt uncomfortable, unlike itself, no longer home. A loud bang came from the port engine after he cleared the atmosphere, the one that had had the explosion, and Din felt a new, uneven vibration beneath him. He had never missed Kuiil more.

“That’s it,” he said aloud. The _Crest_ needed repairs, and soon. 

He needed to go somewhere where the Child would be safe. A place where Din could think, get his head straight, shake this rattled and disoriented feeling. Somewhere he'd belong. Somewhere he could _rest._

He pulled up the navicomputer. The forest planet of Corvus could wait. 

He needed to go to Nevarro. 

  


  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys—all last season the music in the score is telling us Din’s thoughts and emotions when we can’t read his face. This season we’ve gotten a little taste of Baby Yoda’s POV in the music, but the Frog Family reunion is pure romance and it’s _Din’s thoughts_. And his voice gets all soft and husky when he speaks, I can’t even… Din is a romantic deep down.


End file.
